“It takes a village”—and that village ain’t paradise. What most “community seekers” don’t understand about building community

Villager: Hey—do you know where the nearest registry is? Just realized our car is still unregistered!

Me: Just up the hill, by the library.

Villager: Ok, thanks.

Me: Do you need a ride?

Villager: Nah, what’s one more trip?

Me: K. Call me if you need bail money.

Villager: K. Thanks. Altho’ I might just stay in jail and get some rest. Will send the kids to you in a cab tho’. With a house key so you can feed the dogs.

Me: K.

II.

Now, a child-care vignette:

On Mondays, I pack my two littles (the near-teen is still sleeping!) into the truck first thing in the morning and drive them over to a friend’s house. Then gym (self-care, first!) and then work. Sometimes, I rush back to pick up my crew to get back home as another friend’s kids get off school and need to be looked after while their mom goes and earns some moolah.

On Tuesdays, a villager (the same one I might need to bail out of jail if the cops pull her over driving sans registration) brings her duo over as she leaves for her sanity break. I’m “gap” care until their dad gets off work and can come hang with them at their mom’s house until she comes back. Another friend’s partner swings by to pick up one of mine to take her to extra-curricular activities.

On Wednesdays, she takes mine for a couple of hours in the afternoons, so I can run downtown and schmooze clients. When Sean comes home that night, I might tell him, as I run out the door laptop in hand, that there is one-two-three extra children upstairs, because something’s come up for Jan…

(…or, I might forget to tell him, and he’ll just find out when one of the extra kids wanders downstairs and say, “I’m hungry. When’s supper?”)

On Thursdays, I take the littles (“I am not little!” protests Flora) to your house for the day. Gym. Time out for lunch with a friend. Work. Focused time with the near-teen. Kid pick-up.

On Fridays, I take your child. And, I’m childcare for anyone who needs it. I don’t attempt to squeeze any real work in—although every once in a while now, as they’re all getting older, I can manage a phone call or return email.

On Saturdays, Flora usually lives at other people’s houses. “I’ll be at Moxie’s!” “I’m going to Mimi’s!” “Can we go to the mall with Nelly’s mom’s friends?” “Rory’s going swimming, can I go?” I’m usually gone for most of the morning and early afternoon, writing in coffee shops. When I come back… “Where are the boys?” A neighbour took them sledding, skating. “You mean we’re alone?” We go for a walk. Other things.

I’m on deadline, and so my mom offers to take the kids on Tuesday. “I have two extra in the afternoon,” I say. “What’s two more?” she asks.

True.

III.

These are the ties that bind:

A phone call, a neighbour: “We have extra tickets to…” Yes!

A knock on the door: “I just got a call from T., and she’s stuck on top of the hill—the battery died. I’m home alone with the kids—can you or Sean go?” Yes.

A text: “What are you doing for dinner? Potluck? I have chicken and not a single vegetable in the house.” Awesome. I have no meat, but a sack-o-carrots and a bag of frozen peas…

Facebook post: “We need ALL YOUR TOWELS and MOPS at #6 RIGHT NOW.”

IV.

There’s also this:

Far-away friend: So we hit yyc on the 27th . Can we night over at your place?

Me: Shoot. We’re away until the 30th. But everyone on the lane has keys. What time do you get in? I’ll make sure someone can let you in.

V.

The moral:

Here’s the thing you either get or don’t—at this moment, I’m at the point of thinking that if you don’t GET it, there is nothing I can say to make you get it, and yet, here I am, again, trying.

I don’t live in paradise.

These supportive-connective relationships I have, they’re not effortless. They’re not some magic thing that just happens.

This web of give-and-take in which no one keeps score but everyone gets what they need? All this takes FOREVER to create. Like… decades. Years at the least. And it takes effort. It takes investment. It takes WORK.

It takes… oh, what’s the word? Realism, I think. Not all the people you help, who help you, whom you need, who need you—not all of these people are people you love. Some of them you spark with immediately, and others it takes two, five years to really get to know. Some of them annoy the shit out of you when you first meet—and that doesn’t change much five years later.

You’re not a love affair, you’re not a romance, you’re not eternally-bound kindred spirits who read each other’s minds and fulfill each other’s dreams.

You’re a village. A community. A tribe.

Sometimes you work really well… and sometimes you piss each other off.

You come together in a crisis… and then descend into immature internecine warfare over lame, don’t-matter-anything-in-the-big-picture (“What do you mean! Of course they do!”) details.

VI.

Villager: Which one am I?

Me: You annoy the shit out of me about 30 per cent of the time.

Villager: That’s pretty good.

Me: I think so.

****

So very grateful for my village. Absolutely dogmatic about the fact that if you don’t have one—you need to start building it. Today.

xoxo

“Jane”

Post-Script: “Easy for you to say, Jane. How the hell do I start?”

Small steps. Small steps. Get a neighbour’s phone number. Then text them. Invite them for coffee. Regift a fruitcake. That woman you’ve been passing in the stairway for the past six years? Say, “Hi. I’m just going to the grocery store—do you need anything?” And keep. On. Doing. It.

For years.

“But the thing is, Jane… right now? I can’t really give. I just need… and I don’t want to be a mooch. You know?”

Christ. Do I ever, beloved. Both my geographic-village—my physically near neighbours—and my heart-village—my intentional tribe, my creative coven—have been hammered by life’s caprices in the last couple of years. And we’ve often found ourselves looking at each other in helplessness and exhaustion, and saying, “I want to help you. I really want to help you. But I can barely breathe myself, I can barely keep my head above the water.” It’s a terrible feeling, isn’t it? Dual helplessness. I can’t help you… you can’t help me… what the hell is going to happen to us?

What I’ve learned: when I can’t help myself, I can usually still see a way to help you. And when you think you’re totally stretched to the limit… it’s easier to help me than to “fix” yourself. So. The chaos-mess-stress of my life is overwhelming me… but I can get your groceries for you. Drop in for a coffee and listen to you cry. Watch your kids, even though I feel I’m rarely sufficiently present for mine. You’re sick, exhausted and going not-a-little-mad from the pressures of THAT… but when you see a way to offer me relief, you give yourself relief. Cleaning my kitchen floor is easier and more fulfilling than cleaning yours.

One of the most profound memories I have from that flood thing is coming back, dirty and tired, to my dirty and messy house… to find two of my neighbours washing my dishes (two weeks old) and scrubbing my mud-covered kitchen floor. On which I then collapsed (mud-covered) and wept. Gods know they had enough to do in their own houses…

Great post. As we have become more mobile as a culture, the village (which was mostly family and friends from childhood) has been lost. Making one for ourselves is really effing hard, but it’s well worth the effort.

Forgive me…I thought that there was some kind of message to the world included in this post. Perhaps it was just a message to yourself to remember the sum of the whole and not to run over and reverse over (twice) those that would be part of your community but that shit you to tears? 😉

I love this post. We’ve just bought a house and husband and I are introverts, nay, social recluses, but we need the community, if not for ourselves, then for our children. Thank you for the encouragement to get out on our street and build our village.

My Mexican and I NEVER go out on date nights. Admittedly we’re both to blame because we don’t trust people with taking care of our kids. Silly right? I agree that having a community takes effort and needs to be created. And just maybe we’ll get to take bachata dancing lessons sooner than later. Saludos